Daily Life / 2A
They answered their country’s call
Opinion / 4A
Honor our veterans on Veterans Day
Sechrist caps HHS cross-country career with silver medal. S P O RT S / P a g e 1 B
Business Farm / 6A County Wide/ 8A Money Finance / 10A Sports / 1B Classified / 4B
HONOR ROLL / Page 7B
Schools / 6B
Free Press HILLSBORO
NOVEMBER 5, 2014
VOL. 16
PAID Hillsboro, KS Permit No. 1 POSTAL CUSTOMER
Dedicated to serving Hillsboro and Greater Marion County, Kansas
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Oh, so close /
Hillsboro, Goessel challenge for state volleyball titles
Honey of an idea Marion couple puts the ‘bee’ in business.
PHYLLIS RICHERT PHOTO
Trojans’ goal of a championship ‘four-peat’ falls just short The Hillsboro volleyball team poses with its runner-up trophy after losing a tough battle against Silver Lake, the No. 1 ranked team in Class 3A, in the finals of the state tournament in Emporia. Members of the team, which finished the season with a 39-5 record, are: front row (from left), Shelley Arnold, Lakyn Johnson, Julie Sinclair, Tara Proffitt, Emily Jost, Bradli Nowak; back row, assistant coach Jill Hein, head coach Sandy Arnold, Alex Ratzlaff, Shannon Heiser, Rebecca Kaufman, Ellie Weisbeck, Savannah Unruh, Abby Sechrist, assistant coach Malinda Just.
through,” she said. In the meantime, Candi said lightheartedly, the wine makes great Christmas BY PATTY DECKER The Free Press gifts. Bill and Candi Vinduska According to Bill, there of rural Marion are all are many pre-requisites about the birds and bees. they weren’t aware of in “If we take care of them, order to meet federal rethey will take care of us,” quirements. Candi said. “It’s like there is no writIn addition to enjoying ten handbook (for federal lieggs from their chickens censing),” Candi said. and watching the peacocks, Bill added: “There is a peahens, guineas, ducks, handbook. It’s just poorly turkeys, parrots and other explained.” little feathered friends, Even though they have they’re also raising honey their state license, Bill said, bees. they are in the process of Bill, who considers the finishing the federal license. bees a hobby and a business, Once they are able to sell said the honey is only one of mead, Bill said they aren’t many byproducts, including going to be major distribumead or honey wine. tors. “It was a hobby,” he said, “We are more interested “but a lot of family and in a small, localized supply friends really liked (mead and demand,” he said. wine) and wanted to buy it. “We have our circle of So, we undertook the monu- people we know through mentous task of licensing.” medieval groups, and that’s Candi explained they where our main sales are have a lot of work to do begoing to be, along with word fore they can begin selling of mouth.” the wine. They both said they “We are trying to get laaren’t interested in putting bels approved and there’s a their wine on the shelves of lot of hoops to jump See Honey, Page 6A
DALE WIENS PHOTO
Bluebirds near perfection in quest for Class 1A championship
PATTY DECKER / FREE PRESS
The Goessel volleyball team finished as the Class 1A, Division I state runner-up after a three-set loss to Centralia in the championship game Saturday at Hays. It was the Bluebirds’ only loss this season. Pictured are: front row (from left), Sarah Booth, Erin Brubaker, Gentry Thiesen, Makayla King; back row, head coach Crysta Guhr, Brittney Hiebert, Alyssa Booton, Page Hiebert, Eden Hiebert, Olivia Duerksen, Alicen Meysing, Leah Booton, Anna Wiens, Shelbi Stultz, assistant coach Zana Manche.
Candi and Bill Vinduska hold up one of the frames filled with honey. Candi said she brought back 22 supers in her car from Oklahoma last weekend. According to Bill, one of the biggest hazards of beekeeping is picking up supers, which can weigh up to 60 pounds each and half of the weight is from the honey.
Experts dispute the direction of poverty in Kansas Fewer people on welfare, but more living in poverty? BY JIM
MCCLEAN & DAVE RANNEY
KHI News Service
Poverty is a political issue in Kansas. Gov. Sam Brownback campaigned in 2010 on a platform that included as one of its main goals reducing childhood poverty. And since taking office, he has aggressively pursued that goal. But he’s done it his way. Rather than putting millions more dollars into traditional public assistance programs, he has
instituted policies that effectively limited access to them and instead steered would-be beneficiaries into welfare-to-work programs. The key to reducing poverty, he said, was getting people off the assistance rolls and into the workforce. A Brownback commercial airing for his re-election campaign claims the strategy is working. It says that “welfare has been cut in half ” by the governor’s welfare-towork program. The claim refers to a reduction in the number of Kansans
enrolled in the state’s Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. According to the Kansas Department for Children and Families, TANF enrollment has fallen by 54 percent over the past four years, from 38,963 in the 2011 budget year to 17,681 in the 2014 budget year. Similarly, the number of lowincome parents—single mothers, mostly—receiving monthly child care subsidy payments has dropped by 27 percent during the same four-year period. “We’re seeing individuals mov-
ing out of poverty through employment,” said Theresa Freed, a DCF spokesperson. Beyond the numbers Reducing the number of Kansans receiving public assistance isn’t the same thing as reducing poverty, said Shannon Cotsoradis, president and CEO of the advocacy group Kansas Action for Children. The recent KIDS COUNT report compiled by KAC shows that Kansas’ childhood poverty rate declined by 2 percent from 2012 to 2013. But other economic See Poverty, Page 5A
“We have more kids relying on free and reduced school meals, and at the same time we’re seeing significant declines in the numbers of families that are accessing TANF and child care subsidies.... It means fewer poor people are receiving services that are meant to lift them out of poverty.” —SHANNON COTSORADIS, PRESIDENT OF KANSAS ACTION FOR CHILDREN.
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